Reconsider the loan again.

IMF Financing of the Abiy Regime — A Moral and Institutional Accountability Failure

To the Managing Director, the Deputy Managing Directors, and the African Department of the International Monetary Fund,

Looking at the latest IMF report on Ethiopia and the praises it pours on the Abiy regime for following your writ to the letter, one would think that — apart from being impoverished — Ethiopia is a country governed by a regime that wants to bring about development.

The severity of the IMF’s restructuring measures on the local populace, even by your own organisation’s admission, has risen to 43% from 33% within a decade. In spite of this, the IMF recommends further taxing the population and allowing the value of the birr to be completely determined by the market — practically recommending further devaluation and making the populace even more impoverished. Since adopting a free-floating exchange rate regime in July 2024, the Ethiopian Birr has lost over 120% of its value against the US Dollar, with depreciation exceeding 170% within one year of policy adoption. The double whammy of tax and devaluation will push even the comparatively rich to the precipice. This is the IMF’s condition to extend further debt to the regime.

One would wonder: instead of paying lip service in its latest report to the plight of Ethiopia’s poor, your experts could have come up with a better formula that would benefit them. Your conditions could and should have insisted that the regime completely cease and desist from killing its citizens in the Amhara and Oromia regions, stop expanding the war to other regions, and refrain from threatening Ethiopia’s neighbours. Instead, the regime should engage in genuine peace negotiations to resolve outstanding issues.

The regime’s internal security situation is becoming increasingly unstable, and federal forces have launched major offensives against Fano militia groups. According to Human Rights Watch, government forces carried out extrajudicial executions, sexual violence, torture, and ill-treatment against civilians, and used drones and heavy artillery against civilian populations throughout 2024. More than 300 civilians died in drone strikes during 2024 alone, while the government denied journalists access to the region and blocked mobile communications. The IMF’s own report acknowledges “security challenges” as a downside risk to the economic programme, yet no political conditionality whatsoever is attached to this acknowledgment.

There is equally no mention in your reports of the grand corruption of the regime. Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index awarded Ethiopia a score of only 37 out of 100. Land distribution and public procurement are particularly notorious, with contracts routinely awarded to entities with close ties to the government and the ruling party. Reports of an expanding contraband fuel trade implicating fuel station operators point to a broader pattern of illicit enrichment enabled by the very economic liberalisation your programme mandates. IMF loans appear to create overnight millionaires who preferentially gain access to land and credit — a dynamic that corrodes society’s foundational belief that honest work pays.

The sad reality is that while the IMF praises “better-than-anticipated macroeconomic outcomes” and the government’s commitment to “fiscal transparency,” the financing merely prolongs a violent status quo. According to the IMF’s own 2025 assessment, one in five Ethiopians will require food or humanitarian assistance in 2025. Your assistance, as presently structured, exacerbates the plight of the poor, enables endemic corruption, and finances a murderous regime. We call on the International Monetary Fund to immediately attach human rights, ceasefire, and anti-corruption conditionalities to all further disbursements under the Ethiopia ECF arrangement — or to suspend the programme pending full independent review.

Kind regards,

The Amhara Advocacy Group in Europe
Editors
[email protected] | amharaadvocacy.eu

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Sources & References

All 14 references are hyperlinked inline in the letter above. Full list below for transparency.

1. IMF — Third Review under the ECF for Ethiopia & 2025 Article IV Consultation (2 July 2025)
2. Ethiopian Policy — A Decade of Regression: poverty rate from 33% to 43% (12 Nov 2025)
3. IMF Country Report No. 25/188 — domestic revenue mobilisation (April 2025, PDF)
4. Health Poverty Action — Impacts of IMF and World Bank-Backed Economic Reforms in Ethiopia
5. Ethiopian Policy — IMF Foreign Exchange Policy: Birr down over 120% (31 Jan 2025)
6. Ethiopian Policy — IMF Warns Ethiopia “Reform” Faces Risks: depreciation over 170% (15 July 2025)
7. IMF — Executive Board Approves USD 3.4bn 4-Year ECF Arrangement (29 July 2024)
8. Human Rights Watch — World Report 2025: Ethiopia
9. Drone strikes during the War in Amhara — compiled sources
10. IMF — 2025 Article IV Consultation, Third Review ECF: “security challenges” as downside risk (15 July 2025)
11. Transparency International — Ethiopia, CPI 2024 score 37/100
12. Addis Standard / AllAfrica — Ethiopia: Govt Targets Contraband Fuel Trade (31 Dec 2024)
13. Ethiopian Policy — World Bank and IMF Warn: Ethiopia in “Debt Distress” (24 Sept 2025)
14. Addis Standard — IMF cautions Ethiopia’s economic reform faces headwinds amid falling aid, security risks (16 July 2025)